What types of strategies would go into combating zombified animals? All creatures could now be a threat and even the once gentle herbavories have become bloodthirsty killers. Bambi is now after your blood... how do we fight back?

There are viruses that have several hosts, like the flu's human-pig-bird range, or rabies that can infect dozens of different mammals. And then, why a virus? Why not bacteria? Why should only viruses get to be the cause of zombies? Sure, they're stranger, but in the end actually living parasites are more versatile - supporting the metabolic functions of an undead host would be a lot easier to a parasite that has its own metabolism than to one that relies on hijacking a living cell.

As to how I'd handle it myself, I'd try to avoid them as much as possible. Take shelter in the tallest building I can find and hope zombie rats won't think about climbing all the way up. Keep doors closed, and inspect fake ceilings and other potential ways of entry. I assume that large zombified animals wouldn't be too stealthy so I'm not worried about them, but a mouse or a bat can easily go unnoticed. I can't stay out of their reach all the time, but at least I can make sure they won't get to me while I sleep.

I would hope that it would just affect mammals, but even then that's a lot of things to worry about. I think some animals you would take down like a wolf or something, but like things like an elephant are just too big. I think it would be harder to avoid them since most animals have better senses than humans and could detect us easier.

So, yeah, we'd be fucked.

Logged

All of time and space, anywhere and everywhere, any star that ever was. Where do you want to start?

Even with viruses that cross species like bird flu, the symptoms seen from each species can vary greatly. So for a zombie virus, it could zombify certain animals, they could just be carriers, they could have completely unpredictable symptoms like just vomiting, or they could simply just die from it.That being said, I maintain that for anything the size of a deer and smaller, a shotgun would do dandy. Anything bigger, and I probably won't be sticking around to try to kill it.Imagine trying to take down a zombie GORILLA. That's terrifying, imo. Bastards can take shotgun blasts even BEFORE they were zombiefied.